


Some Assembly Required

by Charmkeeper



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Abuse, Brief but Very Real, Followed by Good Memories, High School, M/M, Reincarnation AU, Suicide Attempt, bad memories, finding one another, getting to know each other again, happy endings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:42:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24771061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charmkeeper/pseuds/Charmkeeper
Summary: Everyone is reincarnated at some point or another, but not everyone remembers their past life, those that do only remember the bad things, the bad times, the negative emotions, until they meet the person connected with specific memories. When they meet the good comes flooding back, and you know you've found a bit of yourself once again.
Relationships: Gladiolus Amicitia/Ignis Scientia, Gladiolus Amicitia/Prompto Argentum/Noctis Lucis Caelum/Ignis Scientia, Prompto Argentum/Noctis Lucis Caelum
Comments: 38
Kudos: 168





	1. Future King of Plants

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Wednesday!
> 
> I recently had a vacation, and I finished two stories set to be posted some time in October! That means I finally have more time to write other things, like this! I rushed to finish this in time for BossGoose's birthday! The first chapter anyway.
> 
> The two chapters of this story are really two separate tales from the same timeline. This first one is from Noctis' POV, and the second is from Ignis' POV.
> 
> Please enjoy!

Noctis had two people inside of him.

One was a child. The other was a king.

He didn't wake up one day suddenly knowing that he was a king, he'd always known it. Perhaps he'd known it from the day he was born. There was a distinction, though they sometimes bled together. He wasn't a king, or a prince, now. He'd been a king, or a prince, before. Somehow. Before was somehow okay. It was okay because literally everything he remembered was bad. It was _painful_.

His memories seemed to flow backwards in a way. It started with his death, alone, on a cold throne with a sword in his chest and ended as far back as his small mind could go with a cut on his palm, probably before he'd even been five years old. Everything in between was mashed together. There was a great restlessness that had lasted an eternity. A man who had gone blind. A man he'd pushed from a train. A man who yelled and hated him. These men were woven into the very fabric of Noctis' memories. It was nothing good. Only bad. Why did they stay with him? Why did they care? ...Why did he? Because he did. He cared. So very much.

"It always starts off that way," his father, who was also a king inside, told him. "They say that bad things often outweigh good things. I think that's true, especially when it comes to the things we remember. Not everyone remembers who they were before. Your mother doesn't. When we do remember, we start off only with the bad."

"Then why remember at all?"

"Because," his father said, his hands gently stroking his hair, "When we find others who rest in our soul we remember the good, but we have to find them."

That made sense, Noctis thought, because of all his bad memories, he did have good ones, but only ones of his dad. Sitting at a large empty table while his father made funny faces. Bedtime stories about adventures that may or may not have been exaggerated. Things like that. He remembered mother too, but she'd died when he was very young. His memories of her were mostly of staring at a large portrait in a hall. It must have been a wedding portrait. His father had looked very happy. He'd wondered what she'd been like.

"Don't get lost in the memories," his father told him. "I know it's easy to chase them, but nothing might be all that comes of it. Or worse, despair. You wanted to be a normal child, and not a prince. Now you can be."

Normal probably wasn't quite the right word. He was no longer a prince, and his father was no longer a king, but that wasn't to say that they were normal people. Far from it really. Noctis grew up in Altissia. He lived in a manor. His father was the CEO of Dawn Blooms, a company that provided you with everything gardening. His mother spent her days being her husband's best customer and good advertising. No matter the time of year, their back yard was always filled with something. Sometimes flowers. Sometimes vegetables. Sometimes Noctis helped. The sun above them was always warm and bright when he did. A subtle reminder of who he'd been...maybe who he really was.

School was different than he'd remembered it being the last time around. He attended private school, which was, again, hardly normal, but he had friends. No one he'd ever known before. He wasn't lonely. Really, there was no time to be lonely. He never got into the extracurriculars, but even so it felt like he was always being dragged this way and that for events. He liked being busy though. Really, he liked his life, and by the time his senior year of high school rolled around he'd all but forgotten about the prince inside.

The most difficult thing about senior year was deciding where he was going the following fall. He could stay local. He could stay. There were decent business schools in Accordo. He could stay. Come home once a month and on holidays. It was an appealing option, yet his eye kept being drawn to Insomnia. It had the best business programs, and an amazing astronomy course that somehow interested him more than anything else in the entire brochure, and--

 _Home_. Every time he looked at the cityscape on the front of the brochure his heart squeezed. _Home_.

His parents were supportive of his decision. "You can still come home for holidays," his mother told him. "Your room will always be waiting for you."

His father said something else. "You go where your heart takes you. It won't lead you astray."

At the time, Noctis had believed those words wholeheartedly. Three months into his stay in Insomnia and it felt like everything had fallen apart.

It wasn't that he wasn't busy now. If anything he was busier than he'd ever been. There was always some paper or project due, there was always some lecture to attend, there was never enough time to sleep properly. It wasn't just him, everyone was like that. People often showed up to classes in pajamas, and coffee was a lifestyle. Noctis knew he had it better than some, or most even. He lived in an apartment, well furnished, always stocked, yet...alone. That ought to feel like a blessing. No roommate bringing girls home, no roommate playing loud music at three in the morning, yet it left a void in those times when he wasn't filled to the brim.

The memories filled that void.

As a child he hadn't been able to decipher the memories in a way that had wholly made sense. As an adult he even knew who he'd actually been. His name had been Noctis then too, and he'd been the final king of Lucis. That's what the history books in grade school had said anyway. An old legend had foretold his coming, and in his entire reign he'd only done one thing. That thing had been to die to bring back the light. He'd had three companions ever by his side. That was all the books said though. There was nothing else. There weren't even pictures to tell him who was who.

He was terrified to moogle it. He felt like nothing he could learn from the internet would do him any sort of good. His brain filled in the rest just fine. There was so much pain. So much hate. He knew what his father had told him about the positives that would come from meeting his companions, that his brain would fill the good in and it would all make sense. The problem was that it practically all made sense as it was. He couldn't imagine a good.

His father had told him of the good. He no longer believed in it. His father had also told him to not chase the memories. He did. For so long he'd obeyed, and now it was impossible to resist the pull of grief and sorrow that enveloped every memory of the life he'd once lived. It was easy to get lost in the feelings of a boy who'd lived before him, who he was now, only not quite.

In coming to Insomnia, his father had told him to follow his heart. His heart told him that there was no up from here. His heart told him that he should follow in the footsteps of his prior life. He should cut it off quite early. It would be better for everyone that way.

He did it with pills and alcohol.

All he'd much remember later was the fear. Had he done it wrong? What if this was the wrong decision? An overwhelming panic.

The next thing he'd be fully aware of was an uncomfortable hospital bed, an annoying beeping, and a throat so raw it felt like it was on fire.

He'd almost died, they told him. Perhaps he would have, except he'd called for an ambulance himself.

Had he been brave? Or had he been a coward? He knew what answers the nurses and doctor would give him, but he wasn't sure it was the right one. Still, he didn't think he was likely to try it again. There had been no light at the end of a tunnel, like the media always said there was. There had been nothing but blackness, and Noctis did not want that. It wasn't what he'd been looking for. What had he even been looking for? And end. Not like that.

Even after he was healthy enough to leave, they kept him for a few days, to see how stable he was. They had him talk with his parents, as though them telling him they loved him was enough to live for, and told him that he should get a roommate, so that he didn't feel quite so alone. Maybe a pet would help. Maybe a pill. Regardless he'd be on watch for a while, and he would be expected to go for weekly check ins.

On the last day of his stay they told him that someone had volunteered to stay with him until he found a proper roommate. Until he settled into something comfortable and he didn't feel like a stranger anymore. "You'll like him," they promised. "He was in your shoes a couple years back. He knows what it's like." That's what they always said in here. "I know what it's like." They didn't. They really didn't.

When the guy came to see him out, Noctis determinedly did not look at him. He knew that once upon a time the blond hair he saw in his peripheral would have meant that he'd come from a place across the ocean. Probably not Accordo, but maybe he was Tenebraen descent, or Niflheimian. Today, it didn't mean much. After the King of Light, after him, the walls had come down, despite all the war. Now, everywhere, but especially Insomnia, was a melting pot.

"Hey there!" His volunteer companion said in the most cheerful of voices. "You ready to go? They said you won't need a wheelchair if we walk out together."

He shouldn't be so mean. It was actually nice of this guy to volunteer to be with him. He shouldn't be mean. It was just. Just because he wasn't interested in dying anymore, didn't mean he was interested in living. It didn't mean he had hope. That wasn't this guy's fault. He should at least give him the time of day. He was doing this for free after all, upheaving his life for a bit so Noctis could get his in order.

He should at least look at him. He did. He looked straight at him just as the guy was starting to introduce himself. "So, anyway. Hi! I'm--" His voice staggered to a halt the moment their eyes met. It was no mystery to Noctis as to why. If he'd been talking, he would have stopped too.

Blond hair, blue eyes, skin kissed skin filled with beautiful freckles that made his smiles seem even wider. He hadn't been able to pull him in his memory up by his voice, but his face. His face brought everything back to him. "You're Prompto."

Prompto nodded. "Yeah. Noct."

It wasn't an overwhelming feeling on its own, the way the memories filled themselves in his brain. It was like they'd always been there, and he'd just opened a door to a new room that had been locked for a very long time. It was like all the good things about Prompto, including his very name, just...appeared in places they should have always been. Long afternoons spent on a couch playing video games, long days spent in a car talking, pictures, so many pictures. He'd thought that all the pain made sense on its own, but it didn't. The pain of shoving him off of a train felt so much more intimate knowing all the good that had gone on between them.

One thing stood out glaringly from the rest of it though. It had never been enough.

"Noct?"

"Yeah?"

"Let's take you home."

They didn't talk a lot on the way back to his apartment. Noctis was sifting through emotions and memories like he'd found a shoebox filled with photos he hadn't seen in years. He suspected Prompto was the same. They didn't talk a lot, but they held hands. It was the first thing in a very long time that Noctis had wanted to live for, the feel of Prompto's hand in his. He craved more of that feeling. He craved a lot more.

Apparently Prompto craved a lot more too, because Noctis had barely closed his door behind him before Prompto had his hands at Noctis' cheeks, pulling their faces together. It was supposed to be kissing, but Noctis would never use that word for what they were doing. It was more like they were trying to fuse together, starting with their mouths. He could use all the cliche words. He could say it was desperate, hungry, aching. He could say them. They weren't enough.

Eventually what they were doing devolved into something that was basically panting into each other's mouths, and it still wasn't enough.

"I want to have sex with you," Prompto's words were blunt. They hit like a freight train. "Today. Here. Now. If possible."

That seemed like a great idea to one part of Noctis' brain, but the other decided that one of them should at least try to be rational. "Aren't we going a little fast?"

"Last life," Prompto began, pausing to press something much more like an actual kiss to his lips, "I waited. I waited, and I waited, and I waited. And then you were dead. Fuck waiting. If you don't want this, I'll stop. But fuck waiting. I'm not waiting."

Noctis couldn't help but laugh a little bit. That certainly made a certain amount of sense, didn't it? Noctis didn't think he'd truly been aware of the waiting inside the Crystal. Of course it wasn't like that for Prompto. He'd known every day that had passed. He was sure it had been agony. "You're gonna have to wait a little bit."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. There's at least a thirty second walk to get to my bedroom."

Prompto punched him in the shoulder. Prompto also made that thirty seconds into more like ten by chasing after him. When they hit the bed, they were both laughing. Noctis didn't think he'd ever been so happy in his entire life. Maybe he hadn't been this happy in either life.

Much later, so much later that the light that came in through the window had dimmed down to a twilight orange, they lay in bed. Noctis had his head against Prompto's shoulder, his knuckles slid gently up and down Prompto's freckled arms. There could be nothing, Noctis thought, better than right now. If it could last forever, if he could catch it in a jar and keep it, he would. He couldn't, he knew. All he could do was try to remember this as perfectly as he could remember the moment he'd pushed Prompto from the train. He never would, he didn't think, but he could try.

"Tell me about your life? This one."

"You first."

"I mean. Not much to tell." Noctis shrugged his shoulders.

"You're still rich."

It hadn't been a question, but he was going to answer it anyway. "Hmm. Yeah. Dad's the CEO of Dawn Blooms Gardening Enterprises. Mom's his best customer."

Prompto whistled low. Noctis felt fingers creep up into his hair. "You gonna take over someday?"

"That's the plan. I'm here for business school. Though I'm...more interested in studying the stars."

"That makes sense."

"Does it?"

"Yeah." Prompto didn't elaborate for a moment. "I mean, name aside. I remember you once talking to me about - I think - one of our other missing pieces. You used to go stargaze with them. Like when you were kids. And at camp? Sometimes I'd find you outside havens, looking up. You've always loved the stars, I think." Prompto snorted. "Oh King of Light. Future King of Plants."

Honestly, King of Plants sounded like a much better title. Maybe someday he and Prompto would have their own house with a garden as vibrant and full of life as his mother's. That sounded nice, though...something was still missing. Prompto was right, they still had missing pieces. A blind man that filled him with regret. An aggressive bodyguard he was always mad at. It wasn't all they were. It was just all he remembered. He wanted to remember more. "I'm not always depressed," he admitted softly.

"Nah. It's the memories. I figured that. You got stuck in your head for a while, right?"

"Wasn't busy enough. Didn't have enough people around to distract me."

"Congrats, you have me now. I'm going to distract you every moment you let me."

Noctis would be lying if Prompto distracting him at every possible moment didn't sound like a dream. They needed to eat first though, before they got into more "distraction." Before that though- "I told you mine. Yours now."

"Fair's fair, I suppose." Beside him, Prompto stretched. Noctis was pretty sure he actually heard some of the joints pop. "I got it good this life too. Wealthy family. I have siblings, and parents, who were...well. They were still gone a lot, but not all the time. Definitely a step up. I'm the baby. Youngest of three."

"Nice. What do your parents do?"

"Medical doctors. Whole family is, really. Dad's a surgeon. Mom's some sort of specialist, don't ask me what it's called. She travels a lot. Sometimes she would take me with her, when I was really young."

"That sounds nice."

"It was. I got to see more of the world at a young age. Not that I was old enough to really appreciate it."

"You'll have to come back with me to Altissia in the summer. Appreciate it with me."

It felt like a long time before Prompto said, "Sounds nice. I'd like that."

"Tell me about your siblings."

"Ah. You. I think you should meet them. I think it'd make your life a bit better."

"Yeah?"

"Luna and Ravus are both people I have memories of. You know. Last life. I think you probably have more memories. I-D-K. I think it'd be good for you."

Noctis spent too many precious seconds trying to apply names he didn't remember to faces that he did. He gave up. "Soon maybe. Tell me about them."

"Ravus is grumpy. I mean, he's a good guy, but very grumpy." Prompto's face pulled into what Noctis assumed was a mockery of his usual expression. Noctis laughed. "He's a couple years away from being a surgeon himself. I think he wants to help people, you know, desperate people. People he couldn't help last time."

"Did he kill a lot of people last time?"

Prompto hummed in thought. "Indirectly, more than anything I think. It's a regret. I think. He doesn't really, you know, talk about it. I can just sort of tell."

Noctis definitely knew what that was like. "What about Luna?"

"Luna wants to be one of those traveling doctors! You know, the ones that go out to the really poor places. Especially in the other hemisphere. I think that's always been her passion, helping those that can't help themselves. Her husband is gonna go with her. He's, uh, definitely not a doctor though."

"Yeah?"

"Pretty sure he's military? Ex-military? Not a doctor. They had probably known each other last life, but I don't remember him. His name is Nyx, and they're in that disgusting kind of love."

"Sounds nice." Noctis snuggled even closer to Prompto's side. He was getting to the point where it wouldn't be possible to get closer soon. "And what about you?"

"Oh. Me. I'm." Prompto cleared his throat awkwardly. "I'm in art school."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I was never gonna be smart enough for medical school. Not that kind of smart anyway, so now I'm going to be the weird gay uncle who brings everyone homemade ceramic bowls for the holidays. Because. Pottery is a minor. That I'm taking right now."

"Let me guess, photography is your major." Oh, how many memories did just the word photography bring up? Thousands, and nearly all of them involved Prompto and his camera. They were soft memories that he hadn't had before today. Well, all of them but one memory, even that one though, he could not remember there being a life after death, but if there was, he hoped he'd had that picture with him anyway.

"Got it in one! Luna and Ravus were cool with me being different from the rest of the family, but, uh, my parents and I didn't talk for a while."

Noctis frowned. "That's terrible." He turned his head to place a kiss to Prompto's shoulder. "I'm so sorry. I can't...I can't imagine." He couldn't. Last life he'd had no choice at all. He'd always been going to be king. There hadn't even been any siblings he could have abdicated to. This life, well, he was in business school. He was more passionate about the stars, but he didn't think he could ever truly be an astronomer. All the same, Noctis thought that if he'd decided to go into another field it would have been fine. His father would have groomed someone else to take over. His mother would have put a telescope in the backyard. It apparently hadn't been like that for Prompto.

"Yeah," Prompto admitted softly. "I gotta admit. I--" He faltered for a moment. "The memories were definitely a thing that got to me. Just like you. But." His voice stopped again.

Noctis picked up the pieces. "It was that too. Your parents rejection of you."

"Yeah." Prompto lifted his arms above them, and Noctis could see the scars where he'd cut deep into his skin. "I didn't do stages of it. I just went right for the big one. Luna found me." He snorted with laughter, but the sound was fake. "My first memory waking up after was of Ravus yelling at mom and dad. I'd never heard him sound so angry, but when he turned to see me, his face turned all gentle and he ran his fingers through my hair," Prompto took in a great shuddering breath. "And that was when I knew I'd made a mistake. That was when I knew I'd be missed."

"I'm glad you're here."

"I'm glad you're here too. So much. I can't even begin to tell you."

Prompto began to lower his arms back down, but Noctis noticed something odd. Something that shouldn't have been there. He reached for his wrist, and Prompto laughed. This time the sound was pure and airy. "I was wondering when you were gonna see it."

"Why?" Noctis asked, turning his wrist back and forth to look at it. "Why do you still have a barcode?"

"It's not still, buddy. I got it done. Like. It's a tattoo. That I chose." Prompto flexed his fingers above them, but Noctis still did not release his wrist. "It's such a weird feeling, because last life I wanted it gone so badly. It was an evil mark, shameful, it needed to be hidden. This life...well, this life it was all I ever wanted. What it brought me to. I didn't feel right, like me, without it. Eventually I just sketched it up from memory and had a tattoo artist do it for me. I don't think it's exact, but, you know, close enough."

Noctis got it, and yet somehow couldn't believe it at all.

"It's not shameful now," Prompto assured him. "I consider it a sign of what brought me here. It's peaceful."

Noctis let the wrist drop.

He loved Prompto so much.

They didn't much leave the apartment for the next week or so. They spent their time in bed, or on the couch. At about day three Noctis began to wonder how he had ever survived without Prompto. They fit together like cliche puzzle pieces. They needed each other to keep going in any way that mattered. He knew Prompto felt the same.

The problem with it all was that they couldn't spend the rest of their lives locked away in his apartment. They both had school to get back to if nothing else, and one day when Noctis was just getting out of the shower, he found Prompto on the bed, looking seriously at his phone screen. "What's up?"

"Luna wants to meet up for lunch."

"Cool. Go." He wasn't going to keep Prompto from his sister. That was the very last thing he wanted.

"Both of us, Noct."

Oh. So that was the problem. Well. He was going to make it not a problem. "Okay."

"Yeah? You sure?"

Oh, how hopeful he sounded, like he was a puppy. It was adorable. "Yeah, just let me get dressed for going outside."

"What? A towel isn't enough?"

To make his point, Noctis took his towel and threw it with all his might at Prompto's face. Prompto shrieked with laughter even as Noctis pulled a t-shirt from his dresser. Yeah. This was going to be okay. A good step forward into heading back into their normal lives together.

He met Luna and Nyx outside, on a bright cool afternoon, underneath a giant umbrella. He knew her face. He'd only known her pain, but then the joy of having known Lunafreya filled him from his nose to his toes. He'd fallen into her arms in tears. Tears of pain. Tears of joy. He remembered. All he'd ever wanted was to save Luna, and now here she was. Happy. Married. Safe.

Nyx was less of an experience. He knew his face, remembered where he'd fit into his life, but it was small. His memories were neither good nor bad. It was probably better that way. He only needed to fall into one person's arms that day. He had a feeling Nyx would not have appreciated it nearly as much. It didn't close the gate to a nice lunch though, rather it led to them sitting outside under the umbrella for hours talking. In the end it had been hard to part ways.

"Was it good for you?" Prompto asked afterward, their fingers laced together.

"Yeah," Noctis said softly. "It was."

For a little while after that everything was good. They couldn't stay in his apartment forever. Eventually he had to go back to school, and so did Prompto. They had lives to get back to. That was okay. It was good to start their lives together. They'd spent time adjusting to the new temperature of their lives, but that didn't mean they didn't have their own things they needed to attend. They both had a bit of catch up to do now. If that meant they saw each other less, well that was what cuddling in bed at night was for. It was what Friday date nights were for, and Sunday brunches with Luna and sometimes Nyx.

You had to make time for the important things, and for the first time in his life, Noctis felt like he was actually doing that. He was making time for the important things in his life. School, his future occupation, his parents, Prompto, Luna. His life was starting to go up.

It was heartbreaking when he started to notice that Prompto's mood seemed to be going down.

He tried to ask about it casually, but that was met with a smile and a short dismissal. He remembered that smile, he remembered the pain it covered up. Prompto had always been like that. He wasn't going to let that go on, so, after the third time Prompto had waved it off as nothing, Noctis had promptly climbed into his lap. "You only have yourself to blame for this," he chided as lightly as he could. "If only you'd been honest with me we wouldn't be here right now. If only you'd told me what was wrong." He whined, drawing out the sounds as dramatically as his voice would let him without cracking.

Beneath him Prompto was stuttering out laughter, "You say it like I've committed a crime."

"Not being honest with your boyfriend is the most heinous of crimes," Noctis continued in his whine. "The punishment for that is I am not moving from this spot until you tell me all about it."

"Because, oh no, this is so terrible." They were both laughing when Prompto pulled him down for a kiss, but when Prompto drew back again he sighed and tilted his head back to rest against the back of the couch. "I've been thinking about our other halves."

He didn't have to explain what he meant. The very words brought up terrible memories of two other men. The thought brought up the same memories it always did. An angry man. A blind man. Everything was his fault. Before Prompto, Noctis would have wondered why bother. Now that he had Prompto in his life the question became why wouldn't he bother. "Why didn't you want to tell me?"

"I didn't want you to think that you weren't enough."

"Oh." Noctis was quiet for a little while. "I don't think that."

"Good, because you are enough. I'm just worried. What if. You know. Um. What if they're like us? What if they think there's no way out of their pain?" He took in a great deep breath. "What if they succeed?"

"You want to find them." It wasn't a question. Prompto nodded anyway. "Okay. Let's do it."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Then we'll never have to worry about this again." That was probably a bit of an exaggeration. There would be worry, but it would be of a different kind. They wouldn't be worried about each other. The most important people in his memories would know what was and wasn't, and they'd then figure out how to go forward.

Deciding to do it was one thing. Doing it was another thing completely. To find them they needed names. Their memories didn't provide names, and while high school history class had never covered the King of Light, all it ever talked about was King Noctis and and his companions/knights. Never a name mentioned. Internet searches that Noctis had so avoided before were similarly shoddy. There were mentions that no one was even sure that the knights hadn't outlived their king. A major theory was that they'd died separately, but at nearly the same time. Luna, on the other hand, had a page a mile long about her life. Upon further scrutiny, they eventually came to the conclusion that the pages and information surrounding the whole thirty year period was largely missing and incomplete.

"I bet the only reason you and Luna have pages at all is because you were such big names," Prompto sighed as he flopped back into bed.

"So what else can we do?" Noctis closed his laptop and slid onto the other side of the bed. "Give up?"

"No! Not gonna give up!" Prompto gnawed at his lip. They were both quiet for a long time. They were quiet for so long that Noctis had actually reached over to turn out the light before Prompto spoke again. "The archives."

"What?"

"The archives!" Prompto insisted. "We live in Insomnia! If anywhere is going to have secret papers of information buried deep, it's gonna be here! Maybe they'll have stuff from the Age of Darkness!"

Noctis wasn't really sure about that, but they didn't have any better ideas.

Noctis called in the morning and the archivist on duty told him that the archives were open to the public, if you agreed to their rules, and was open six days a week - Monday through Saturday. Prompto and Noctis agreed that Saturday would be best for both of them. No classes, no obligations, they could spend all day looking through files and papers if they had to. Prompto felt really optimistic, but Noctis felt...wary. They had their idea, and maybe it would work, but Noctis had a feeling that the idea and plan was the easy part, and they were about to fall into the chaos that was the hard part.

As it would turn out, he was very wrong.

They hopped off the bus at 9:30 in the morning, just after opening. After all, it might take all day or even multiple trips to find what they were looking for, if they found it at all. As one probably imagined with archives, it was located in the basement of a very official looking building, that Prompto told him was one of Insomnia's courthouses. Even from ground level they had to go down three flights of stairs before they reached the archives.

They only knew it was the archives because the door said so, along with the hours, and a small and ancient sign that read _Open_. "Don't need any more invitation than that." Prompto wasn't wrong, but it still _felt_ wrong to just open the door without knocking. Still, no one immediately screamed at them to leave, so they ventured a little further in, surrounded by dimly lit corners and the smell of old paper, until they reached the front desk.

There was someone sitting at the desk, back toward them, and Noctis had a sinking suspicion that this wasn't the woman he'd talked to on the phone. Did archives have more than one archivist? Even from behind he, for it was a he, didn't seem very old. His hair was a washed out color somewhere between brown and blond. He had road shoulders, and was wearing a sweater-vest. Yes, definitely the archivist type. And yet?

He and Prompto looked at one another. Prompto shrugged. The guy hadn't reacted at all when they'd walked in. Hadn't he heard them? Prompto leaned around, just a little, and then shook his head. "He's got buds in."

Noctis snorted. "Wish they'd let me listen to music while I was working."

"You don't work," Prompto pointed out. "And I'm pretty sure your dad will let you when you get there." Noctis watched him roll his eyes. "Anyway, might not be music? He's typing something up. Might be an audio recording. You know. Work related."

Noctis was pretty sure they could have stood there for a while continuing to argue with one another about nothing and yet everything, but it was kind of awkward, just standing around talking while someone in the vicinity couldn't hear them. "I got this," Prompto promised. With his brightest smile on his face, he leaned around, not too far, but just far enough that the guy would see if when he began to wave his hand.

Even from behind, Noctis could see the guy startle. "Sorry!" He said in a voice that seemed familiar, but wrong somehow. The buds were quickly popped out of his ears, and then the chair swiveled a bit so the archivist and Prompto were facing one another. "How can I--" Noctis heard the guy stop talking abruptly, but what he noticed more was Prompto's face. The smile fell off his face, shock filled his eyes, and his hands flew to his mouth.

"Iggy!" He heard Prompto hiss between his fingers, and then his eyes darted up to meet Noctis'. "Noct! It's Iggy!"

Prompto stepped back and Noctis stepped into his place to look. His eyes met green, and he remembered. It was a less overwhelming feeling than it had been with Prompto, and Prompto's hadn't been overwhelming. There were more memories though. There were a lot more memories. They started nearly as far back as he could remember, and filled in the gaps of distrust, loneliness, and regret around the person he'd previously thought of only as blind and sad. It was still sad. He'd loved him so much. "Ignis."

"Noct. Prompto." Ignis was shaking as he stood, but he didn't fall, not until he'd gotten around the desk to them. When he did he all but collapsed to his knees, his fingers gripping weakly to their shoulders. They fell with him, though more by choice than weakness in their knees. It made sense, Noctis supposed. Ignis was dealing with the memories of two people at once. It was probably much more overwhelming.

They sat there in a heap, listening to Ignis breathing. It took awhile for it to even out, but when it did, the arms that had pulled them down so weakly pulled them in close and tight. Noctis felt like Ignis was a mother bird, trying to scoot all of her eggs beneath her belly, except that what Noctis felt for Ignis was anything but motherly.

"Are you okay?" Prompto eventually ventured to ask.

"Yes," Ignis answered immediately. "Oh, yes, I'm perfectly fine. Better than." That was the weird thing about his voice. He didn't have the accent. The words were all Ignis, but they missed their lilt. There was something else. Noctis pulled back a little.

"Specs doesn't have specs," he said suspiciously.

Ignis laughed, a loud thing that Noctis thought he could get very used to hearing. "I think the gods thought they were being funny when they decided I ought to have perfect eyes this life."

"Not funny."

"No," Ignis agreed, "but it's nice."

They sat in silence for a little while longer, and while no one else seemed to want to say anything, Noctis eventually felt the need to fill the void. "You're not going to ask Ignis to fuck you immediately, are you?"

Prompto squawked at him, which he deserved. "Not in the middle of a public government building no!"

"We also had best go talk to Gladio before there's even any discussion of that." Ignis gasped softly, and he pulled back. It wasn't far, but far enough that they could talk without even whispers being shouts in their ears. "Oh. I get to gloat. He's going to hate it."

"Gladio?"

"Gloat?"

"Ah, yes, you wouldn't know. The fourth member of our group. His name is Gladiolus - Gladio."

The name didn't connect with the memories in his head. A large, angry man with a tattoo and a sword as big as he was. Gladiolus. No. It didn't compute at all. Noctis suspected the two would refuse to meet each other until he'd actually seen his face. "Okay. He's already with you?"

"Yes. We've been connected since high school."

"Nice. So. Why do you get to gloat?"

"Because this was the plan!" Ignis steepled his fingers happily, his smile as wide as a cliche villain's. "I told him that if we came to Insomnia--" He stopped, and then started again. "I told him that if I came to the archives we would meet our other half. I knew that someday you would come looking for answers! He disagreed, and now I get to gloat about being right."

"No one likes a sore winner, Specs." Ignis didn't seem to care, and Noctis supposed he couldn't blame him.

They couldn't just sit around on the ground all day. Ignis did have work to do, but Ignis also said he was capable of multitasking, so while Ignis went back to work "digitizing files" they played 20 Questions with one another. Noctis thought he learned a lot about Ignis in a short amount of time that way. Some things were the same, like his favorite color, his favorite foods, how good of a driver he was, but the details of his current life were very different.

He was a middle child, though he'd spent a good part of his childhood as the baby. Because of his past life, and how it had affected him as a baby his parents had endeavored to keep him busy at all times, and that had led to something of a Cinderella story. Ignis had taken care of the house at large, until high school, when he'd met Gladio. From the sounds of it Ignis had not talked to anyone in his family since he'd graduated.

"Were you ever suicidal?" Noctis had gathered the courage to ask at one point. He wasn't quite sure if it was a relief or not when Ignis shook his head.

"No, but I did consider murder quite a bit."

They talked and talked until Prompto's stomach loudly reminded them that food was a need. When they checked their phones it was almost four o'clock.

"I get off in an hour. Why don't you two get something to eat and come back when I get off the clock."

"And then we'll go see Gladio?"

"He'll be at home, so yes. We'll all go see Gladio."

"And then you'll gloat."

Noctis snorted at Prompto's comment, but Ignis only grinned up at them. "I will do so much gloating."

They didn't wander far. They didn't want to. What if they took too long and returned to find that Ignis had already left? No. They took quick footsteps and went into the first restaurant they found. It was a Kenny Crow's, a relic of a time gone by, the slogan said, but for Noctis it brought back a lot of memories. He was sure it was the same for Prompto. "Too bad they don't have Justice Monsters Five in the corner anymore."

"A relic lost to time," Prompto lamented with an overly dramatic sigh. "Didn't Iggy always like the salmon from here?"

"Yeah," he remembered that. He also remembered how he'd adjusted the recipe more to his tastes for cooking at camp. "Is it the same now though?"

Prompto raised an eyebrow at him. "You wanna find out?"

"Yeah."

When they returned to the front doors with three burgers, one salmon, and about a thousand pounds of french fries, Ignis was waiting for them. Noctis checked his phone. It read 4:59. "You jumped the gun a little bit there, didn't you?"

"What the head archivist doesn't know won't hurt her. Besides, we rarely get visitors, and I type at a speed she can't comprehend. She'll never know." He came down the steps and Prompto and Noctis made to follow him. They didn't know where his car was after all, or where they lived for that matter. "I see you got Kenny Crow's."

"Is that okay?"

The only reply they got was, "They've improved their salmon recipe." Prompto and Noctis grinned at one another. Score.

Ignis was still a great driver, though his car was a little cramped. "I can't imagine Gladio sitting in here." His memories portrayed Gladio as a very large man. He simply couldn't see it.

"Gladio has his own car. This is mine, just for work."

"So he can't sit in here."

"Can't and won't are two different things."

"To be fair," Prompto put in, "If I were really tall, I wouldn't want to sit in here either."

They drove mostly in silence. It wasn't uncomfortable, the tension that filled Noctis was more about the anticipation of what was about to happen. How would his memories change when he met Gladio? It could only be good, good memories filling themselves in the spaces between the bad ones, but there was that small voice in his head that whispered _'What if it's not?'_ All of his memories about Gladio revolved around being pushed about on a training mat, or yelling, or silently fighting because Ignis had told them off already and they wouldn't get away with it.

Like Prompto, like Ignis, Noctis couldn't imagine his memories in a positive way. The anxiety of it filled his lungs like he was drowning. It only got worse when Ignis parked his car alongside a truck in the driveway of a small house in an area that wasn't quite suburbia. "Have you told him we're coming?"

"No," Ignis admitted, "I want to see his face."

"You're mean," Prompto said with a laugh as they all began to unbuckle and get out of the car.

"Never in either life have I ever claimed to be nice." They all chuckled about that a little, because even as Noctis shifted through his newly remembered memories he was pretty sure that was true, but Ignis soon shushed them as he got to the front door.

Inside the house was a small foyer, painted white, where they all took off their shoes. Ignis did it the quickest before he all but ran to the entryway to the left side of the house. He leaned against it, taking up practically all its space, and Noctis had to stop himself from laughing. Never had he ever seen Ignis be so obvious about hiding something. It was like he was trying to get caught quickly. Maybe he was. "Hey," came a deeper voice from within, "what's up?"

"Nothing," Ignis said lightly in return. From behind Noctis could just barely see him lift his chin in challenge of that. "Can't I be excited to come home to you?"

There was the longest, most awkward pause Noctis thought he'd ever been part of. Finally, "Now I know something's up. What's happened?"

"Why don't you come here and make me tell you?"

Gladio must have taken him up on that offer, because the next thing that happened was Ignis ducking out of the way of a large, tanned arm that swiped too lazily to be serious. Ignis backed up, and Gladio followed. That was when Gladio stopped short. "I brought home guests, by the way."

That was all they got before their eyes connected, and Noctis found his memories filling themselves in again for the second time that day. It was tiring this time, more than anything else, yet he was also distracted enough that the next thing he knew about present times was that he was enveloped by large, strong arms that seemed very intent on never letting him go. A second later, he heard a great sob, and then Prompto was pressed up next to him like sardines in a can as Gladio, their Gladio, seemed intent on hugging them to death.

Though Ignis claimed to not be nice, he didn't interrupt them. He let them stand there in a hug until Gladio pulled back, his too large hands coming up to their faces. Noctis felt more than saw his trembling fingers trace along his cheek. He had been, maybe still was, such an angry man, but he'd had this inside him too. Noctis had seen this too. Passionate, loving, gentle. Gladio had never done things halfway. He'd come to love him for it, as the years had passed. He remembered now. It felt impossible to have forgotten for so long.

"Do you know how they found me?" Ignis interrupted at last.

"Oh no." Noctis could see Gladio's face pale. He bit back a laugh. It was clear he knew what was coming.

"That's right," Ignis said smugly. "They marched right down into city archives, trying to do research on the King of Light. To find us."

"Fuck! You are going to be insufferable!"

"Naturally." He said it as though that was something to be proud of. "But that can be later. Why don't we eat now?"

Gladio and Ignis had a small dining room painted a soft blue with an equally small table in the center of it. It barely fit the four of them, but the tightness read more as cozy, and Noctis found that he wouldn't want to be further away from them as he ate. Beneath the table he could reach out with his foot at any time and touch any of their feet easily. If he wanted to reach out to either side of him and tell Gladio or Prompto to knock it off, he could.

They traded occupation stories, or really more like future occupation stories. Ignis was what he called a junior archivist, which, as he said, was just a young archivist who hadn't proved that he knew what he was doing yet. He was out of school. The rest of them were still in school. "You and I are similar," Gladio said to him when they'd made their way around to him, "My father runs a sports goods company. Grew up in that realm. Iris is going to take it over though, I went down a slightly different path."

"Yeah?"

"I saw so many people hurt doing something that should be fun growing up. I wanted to help them, and someday I will. I'm going into sports medicine."

"If you get up to the major leagues, you can make a lot of money doing that," Prompto put in. Noctis supposed if any of them were to know, it would be him.

"I don't really care about that too much. I just want to help people feel better and enjoy their games again." That was so Gladio that Noctis just wanted to cry. Then he began to speak again, "I also knew a prince, a long time ago. He wasn't hurt playing sports, but I couldn't much help him back then. I often think about how what I've learned now could have helped him then. It wouldn't have been perfect, but it would have been some relief. I wish I'd taken an interest in it then, even to know how much pain you were really in."

That time, Noctis really did begin to cry.

Around him there was a flurry of motion. Ignis took their containers and forks. Prompto's hands pressed against his shoulder, and Gladio's hands pulled gently at his elbow. "Let's go sit on the couch."

The living room was dark, but the couch was darker. Its plush cushions gave way easily as he sat. "Why don't I put in a movie?"

"What?" Prompto half complained as he sank down next to Noctis. "No backstory? No how you met Iggy story?"

"Not tonight," Gladio said with a rumbling laugh. "We've got time."

Prompto made a squawking protest, but Noctis nodded his head. Time. They had time this time. They didn't just have days or weeks, a decade lost to darkness and survival. If they played their cards right they'd have decades to grow old together. Decades to face their problems together. Decades to share their joys together. "Time sounds amazing."

"I still don't like waiting," Prompto huffed before he all but fell against his side.

"Don't think of it as waiting then," Gladio plucked a movie from their collection. He wasn't going to stream it. That so old school. That was somehow very Gladio. "Think of it as savoring."

"Sounds like waiting to me," Prompto grumbled.

"Then you'll just have to wait. Not long though. Promise."

"How long is not long?"

"Tomorrow at breakfast?" Prompto lifted his head up, and he and Noctis locked eyes. "What?" Gladio looked up from where he was too. "You two don't think you're going back to your places, do you? No. You're staying."

"If that's what you and Ignis want..."

"I will be heartbroken," Gladio said very seriously, "If I don't get to go to sleep with one of you in my arms tonight."

"That sounds more like it," Prompto hissed. His head fell back onto Noctis' shoulder, and Noctis supposed that was that. They were staying. He may have been crying only minutes before, but his heart felt like it was filled to bursting with something that wasn't quite joy. It was more settled than that, but not less strong. Contentment maybe. Maybe that was it. He was filled with it.

As the previews began to play, Gladio sat down on Noctis' other side. He picked up the remote, and then completely surprised them both by leaning down and kissing the crown of Noctis' head. "I'm sorry I made you cry."

"It's okay," Noctis said bashfully. "I think I needed it."

"Where's my head kiss?!"

Gladio snorted, and Noctis could feel the warmth of his breath. "I can't reach you right now."

"I will get up off this couch--"

"Gentlemen," Ignis scolded from the doorway. They all fell silent. "Behave." When he entered the room fully, Noctis saw he was carrying four drinks in his hands, and then Prompto really did get up off the couch to help him. He took two, a mug and a bottle of Gatorade. Before he could draw away, Ignis leaned down and pressed his lips to Prompto's forehead. "Better?"

"Yes," Prompto mumbled so softly Noctis almost didn't hear it.

A bottle of hard cider was passed to Gladio, and then Ignis came to him. Another mug was passed to him, and Noctis almost cried again when he saw that it was cocoa. It wasn't really the season for cocoa yet, but the point was that Ignis had remembered. He'd even remembered the number of marshmallows he liked on top. "I hope I remembered correctly."

"It's perfect."

As Ignis settled down on Prompto's other side, Noctis thought that was really true. Gladio was right, they had time this time, but that moment would always be the one he held above all else, because it was the first time they were all together again. Their lives, free of gods, prophecies, fate. He'd started out his life with memories of only the bad things, the bad times, the sad moments. He had all the happy ones he needed, but it wasn't enough. In that moment he knew he was going to build a life filled with happiness.

He was going to prove his father wrong. The bad would never outweigh the good. Never again. From now on the good would overwhelm the bad.


	2. Foolproof Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Friday!
> 
> Well, this only took me two months, right?
> 
> Welcome to the second chapter of this fic! It's told from Ignis' POV, and mostly focuses on his high school years and relationship with Gladio.
> 
> Please enjoy. <3

Ignis had been a quiet child.

The adults in his life would laugh about it and say that it was odd, because he'd been the sort of baby that had cried constantly. Ignis didn't think it was odd at all. Babies that were ignored eventually learned that crying didn't get them help. Eventually they stopped. Eventually they stopped asking for anything. They learned to fend for themselves quite early.

He, like most children, would never remember his earliest years, but his older siblings had always been more than happy to tell him about them. Constant crying had been his first year or so of life, followed by the creepy sitting in the corner and watching people of his toddler-dom. "You never talked. They took you to a therapist about it. Thought you were stupid."

According to said siblings about the time he'd been four years old, he'd simply started talking in full, grammatically correct sentences. It was at about that time that he'd apparently started talking about the memories too. Most of what had come out of his mouth had been daemons, an immortal man, blood, war, and then his own blindness.

Even Ignis could remember the first time he'd brought it up. He could remember his mother's screech into the living room. "Who's been letting the baby watch horror flicks?!"

The answer was no one, because all of that came from his own head.

Soon, he'd been back in a therapist's office, though a different sort of therapist. He didn't remember the visits or the talking so much as he remembered the end result. An "overactive imagination" she had told them, which was a pretty way of calling him a liar. There were pills for his sleep, and then the quiet suggestion that keeping him busy was probably for the best.

He was fairly certain that the therapist had meant hobbies, like perhaps putting him in a small child's soccer league, or stamp collecting, knitting even. He was fairly certain that the therapist had not meant that he should start to (re)learn cooking at the age of not-quite-six, and all the household chores to follow. It worked though. Soon he was in school in the daytime, after school he was taking care of dinner and cleaning, and then at precisely eight o'clock he popped a pill in his mouth that knocked him out until six in the morning. It was supposedly a foolproof plan, he would never have time to think about a man who was not quite him. A man who's pain he shared, a man whose entire life was naught but pain.

The truth was the opposite, it still plagued his every second, he'd just learned that talking about it only made his reality worse. He'd learned to never talk about it. Never again. Never to anyone.

His next sibling was born when Ignis was ten years old, and she was added to his docket of things to care for. His youngest sibling was born when he was twelve, and by that point Ignis could say he didn't know what being well rested felt like. There was only ever exhaustion and more work, because he had to be kept busy.

At thirteen he stopped taking the sleeping pills. Sleep was a luxury he didn't have when he needed to keep his grades up and keep them from wallowing in trash. Exhaustion was a constant companion, his only friend, but he was top of his class and the house was kept immaculate. It was only ever enough to keep his mother from scoffing at him. It was never enough to keep the thoughts of what could only be a past life out of his brain.

He was fourteen when they learned about the King of Light in school. It wasn't a large section of the history textbook, just a segment of a chapter that covered the entire Age of Darkness. There was a picture of King Noctis, the last king of Lucis at the age of twenty. He'd lived to be thirty, but there had been no pictures of him at the age of his death. There was just this, a portrait picture taken when he was still prince. It was enough for Ignis.

He knew this man. His face was featured heavily in his "imagination." The text described King Noctis as naive, but kind. He was a man who had been willing to give the ultimate sacrifice for his country, for all of Eos. A good king. A good man.

That was not what his mind portrayed to him. His mind gave him the picture of a boy who was cruel. A boy who ignored him in all the things he did, and they had been many. A boy who would neglect a button until it fell off his jacket and Ignis was forced to look for it and then sew it back on in the dead of night. He remembered a man who slept until noon, and quite often hit him in the face in the throes of sleep when he tried to wake him. He remembered an apartment filled with trash that he was expected to clean. He remembered video game upon video game played instead of looking at just one thing he needed to do. The chore would ultimately be left to him. He remembered frustration and anger. He remembered yelling.

He also remembered fear and loss. Pain. He had loved that boy, that man, who would never even look at him. He gave his sight for him. All for naught. How? How did he know?

The textbook also mentioned companions. There were no names or pictures, but it filled itself in. A boy, hair the color of sunshine. A threat, a liability, a distraction, a nuisance. This one had looked at him, but only in fear and disdain. A man, larger than himself. All brawn and no brain. Filled with anger and disregard. Dismissal. Not good enough.

He thought of his mother at home, his father at work, his siblings in their separate classes. None of them looked at him either.

He was never good enough for _anyone_ , was he?

Well, he had an answer now, didn't he? Far-fetched and outlandish as it was. The pictures that played in his head over and over were of a man long dead. The pictures were the life of a companion to the King of Light. Was he him? Or was he just crazy? Did the answer matter?

It didn't. Real or artificial, he was both him and this companion. The latter did nothing for him but teach him lessons he shouldn't have yet known. He could not rely on anyone but himself. There was no escape.

"You need to join an extracurricular." His mother told him at the beginning of his freshman year in high school.

"Why?"

"All your siblings do." Ignis did not bother to mention that two of his siblings weren't even in school yet. He would just be told that preschool counted. It didn't. There was a reason preschool had the prefix of pre to it. "They're in two or three extracurricular activities, and it's really not fair to them that you're not." His siblings also didn't have to cook, clean, and put the babies to bed, but he didn't dare say that either. It was easier to not fight. It was always easier. "So pick one. Any one. I don't care."

In the end, he picked track and field. He knew that despite her words his mother did not mean book club, which would have been by far the best option. She meant something sporty, something that could have an audience, not that she'd ever come to the events. She expected something that required physical activity. He could have chosen drama club, or choir, but the reality was that he didn't want to be a part of something that had to work together. Of his options, track and field was the easiest. It was technically a team sport, but you were judged individually. You performed as individuals.

His mother wasn't happy with the fact that he was only signed up for the spring season, but she otherwise accepted it, and that gave Ignis time to try and readjust his schedule. He napped at lunch and crammed as much of his homework into his school day as possible. In the end, he knew it would be a tight fit, but he'd manage.

Everything went fine, until the first track meet at home. In between events, Ignis had taken to doing homework. It wasn't truly ideal, but it would save him a bit of time later, when he was rushing through everything else. The meet being at home made it easy for him to get up and go inside when he realized he'd left a textbook he needed in his locker. The jaunt up took no time at all, and Ignis got to marvel at the empty hallways. He liked them empty. He knew most students probably found them eerie and creepy when they weren't filled with people or they knew that classrooms beyond were also quiet and dark. Ignis found it peaceful, like a rare moment of quiet in his otherwise raucous life. It wasn't something he could savor though. He quickly grabbed his science textbook and began to make his way back.

To detour through the auditorium had been a choice he'd made arbitrarily. It was a little faster to cut through it, and Ignis was always looking for ways to carve seconds out for himself. It was an arbitrary decision. It would change his entire life.

He could hear it the moment he'd entered the space. It was a sob, soft, yet it echoed off the walls. He should have ignored it, went on his way, but he sought it out instead. He walked softly, searching in the auditorium's dark corners and alcoves until he finally found what he was looking for behind the curtain on the stage. It was a boy or young man who was probably a little older than him, though perhaps not by much. It was hard to tell. Even in the shadows Ignis could see that he was quite large. Tall, muscular. He was wearing track gear, and wasn't someone he recognized. Someone from the rival school then. He had his face pressed down into his hands, and Ignis should have left.

He didn't. "Are you quite all right?"

Hands were lowered with jerky motions, and Ignis found himself looking at a face he recognized. His eyes met other eyes that were the color of molten copper, and then there was something so much more in his head. Not just the things he'd known before, the arguing, the defeats, the resentment, the dismissal, but more than that. Laughter, food shared, companionship, reliance, a fondness that settled in his chest and would not leave. These things he had never felt or known, or...remembered before.

It overwhelmed him, and he stood, frozen in place, until the other boy - Gladio, his brain told him softly, his name was Gladio - reached out. "Iggy," he said almost reverently. No one had ever called Ignis that. Not this life.

Fingers grazed his cheek, and the spell was broken. Ignis bolted.

"Iggy!" he heard Gladio call after him. "Please don't run away from me!"

He only ran faster.

The rest of the meet went in a haze. The events he took part in went by like blurs, and the in between was spent looking out for a person he'd never met before today, but had felt he'd known all his life. His homework lay forgotten, until the end. It was stuffed into his schoolbag, and then he heard that voice again. "Ignis!" His head darted up to see Gladio waving at him, trying to get his attention through the denseness of the crowd of people darting this way and that to buses and locker rooms. He hoisted the bag up over his shoulder and turned away. He couldn't deal with this. He'd never be able to deal with this.

"Ignis please don't run!"

He ran. He ran all the way home. Once home he didn't tell anyone what had happened at the track meet. It didn't take much to keep it secret. No one ever asked him about it anyway. He showered and picked up his siblings' mess in the living room before he started on dinner with his science book open on the counter. He was going to have to multitask if he wanted to get everything done in good time.

When he finally made it to bed in the wee hours of the morning, he couldn't sleep. His mind just kept playing scenes that he hadn't had before. All of them memories of Gladio in a life he didn't really feel like he'd lived. A warmth settled into his chest. He'd never felt more unsafe.

When Monday rolled around Ignis went to school acting as though nothing had happened. It was over now. He didn't have to worry about meeting Gladio again until the next meet with that school. Perhaps he'd skip it, but that was a problem to be dealt with in the future. For now he was back to reality, and his life would carry on as normal. That was genuinely what he thought. He was wrong.

It happened when he walked into his AP literature class. There, sitting in the back like he'd always been there, was Gladio. It took every ounce of willpower Ignis had to not simply turn back around and walk back out. They'd call his mother if he acted out. She'd give him more to do. He was already at his limit. He had to sit, and pretend a man from a past he shouldn't remember wasn't sitting right there.

He didn't do it very well. He kept trying to glance toward the back of the room peripherally, both able to see him yet not able to know what he was doing. It was an hour of what Ignis would call near torture.

When the bell rang, Ignis made to bolt out, but he found himself blocked by someone both bigger and taller than he was. "Can I help you?" Ignis said, determinedly looking at the scratched surface of his desk.

"It's not like you to run from problems."

"Then perhaps I am not the person you seem to think I am."

"No, you are. I know you are. I know you know who I am too."

"And why is that?" Ignis whispered angrily. He heard something snap loudly. He felt his pencil splinter in his hand. "Why is it that I know the name and face of someone I've never met before in my life?!"

"This life," Gladio correctly calmly. "We've never met this life. We spent last life practically intertwined." He remembered. He remembered times when he'd wanted to shove Gladio as far away as he wanted to now. Sometimes he'd hovered too much. "Don't you have anyone? Anyone who remembers too?" The words implied to Ignis that Gladio had that someone, maybe multiple someone's. It made him even more furious.

"No!" He snapped back at him, his belongings gathered quickly in his arms as he made to get up. "I'm just crazy! And if you know what's good for you, you'll stay away before they brand you as crazy too!"

The person that Gladio said was a past life did not run from his problems. Gladio was right. Ignis was not that person. He'd run from everything. The problem was that even though he kept warning him, Gladio kept following where he ran. They shared at least half their classes, and with passing hour Gladio's seat crept closer and closer to his own. At lunchtime when he sat at the emptiest table, Gladio sat across from him. It went on for days. He didn't even say anything. He didn't have to. The message was clear. Gladio was here to stay. Ignis wanted to scream at him. He wanted to strike at him and shove him. He didn't want it. He didn't want any of it.

It wasn't until Friday that Gladio tried to make conversation with him again. He'd just been starting to get used to the silence. He'd just been starting to think that maybe he could live with this, and then Gladio tore it all down. "It's nice."

"What is?"

"That someone makes all your lunches for you everyday." Ignis paused to look at his tormentor as he picked up the fruit cup on his tray. "Dad would, but he'd never been great at cooking. So it's school lunch for me and Iris."

"No one does."

"Hmm?"

"No one makes my lunch for me." It was harder than it should be to keep his voice on an even keel. Was he supposed to feel better? With these soft feelings? With these soft memories? Knowing that someone had once given half a care about him? It only made him feel worse. It only made him wish for death. Or to disappear. He didn't want to exist. Instead of throwing his lunch, he stabbed a fork into it. "I make it myself."

"Oh, so you've already picked cooking back up."

It wasn't a question. Ignis answered anyway. "Yes."

"That's nice too."

"It's not."

"No?"

"No. I hate it. I hate it with every fiber of my being."

"Then why do you do it, Iggy?"

Iggy. Iggy. That was the last straw for him. "It must feel so nice," he growled. "To be someone who has choice." He shoved his lunch, fork still speared into it, across the table at Gladio. "Keep it!" he spat as he stood up. "I don't want it!"

He left the lunchroom. He left and got his things for the next class out of his locker. And then he sat against his locker, mouth pressed against his knees. He'd meant to do some more school work, so he'd have less later. He couldn't even focus. He just wanted to stop. Stop what? The little voice in his head asked. What did he want to stop?

Anything. Everything. Nothing. He just wanted to stop.

When the bell that signaled the end of lunch rang, Ignis just watched the feet go by. No one even noticed him there. They never did. The horde had begun to thin out by the time a pair of large feet stopped in front of him. Ignis didn't even need to look up to know it was Gladio. He wanted to scream at him to leave. Instead he bit his tongue so harshly that he tasted the metallic tang of blood.

Gentle hands he wanted to lash out at sat his lunch-bag beside his books. "It was delicious," Gladio murmured. "You're already as great as you were before."

Gladio's feet moved away. Ignis just wanted to _stop_.

Gladio joined the track team, because of course he did. Ignis could get no peace. Gladio was naturally a great asset to the team. Of course he was. Gladio would have been an asset to any sport he decided to try. Ignis wasn't here to question Gladio's worth. He just wished that Gladio would leave him out of it. He sat next to him at all events, always moving between actually watching the other competitors to reading some book or another with a spine so bright and new that Ignis knew it hadn't come from the school library. Gladio just refused to give up, even though they didn't talk often, and when they did it almost always ended with Ignis storming off.

It wasn't until the last track meet of the season that things started to shift. Gladio'd had a book. Not unusual, but this was actually something Ignis recognized. "How lucky you are," he'd commented blandly before turning his face back toward his biology textbook.

"What?"

"That is the latest book in the Silver City series, is it not?"

"It is."

"The library won't have that at least until the beginning of next school year, and it'll probably be months after that before I manage to borrow it." He didn't normally indulge in non school books, but at some point in his earlier years a book pusher had come to the school and had them all pick out one book from her wares. Ignis had been too young for Silver City at the time, but he'd felt the need to make a point of choosing the thickest book available.

The Silver City books were trash, yet Ignis loved them. There was something...familiar about them, yet wholly different. He'd been aware that a fourth book had been set to come out, yet he'd thought it'd be a year before he ever saw it. He almost asked if the Tallis twins had returned to their native land yet. He almost asked if Prince Phoenix had yet chosen between his advisor/childhood friend, Cornelius and his trainer/bodyguard, Wolfstan. He almost asked.

He pushed his nose back into his studies instead.

It wasn't until the end of the meet that Gladio snapped the book shut. It wasn't until then, and then he unceremoniously dropped it into Ignis' lap. "What's this?"

"Lemme know when you finish," Gladio had said simply. "I wanna discuss."

Ignis made a show of being upset about it, but he took the book and spent the rest of the weekend reading it in between everything else. He stole moments for it that he couldn't really afford, almost burned the meals he made twice sneaking pages between stirring, and lost hours of sleep to reading just one more chapter (just one more was always a lie.) When Monday came around again he slid the book back across the lunch table to Gladio. "You finished?"

"I did." Ignis sat down and began to unpack his meal.

"So tell me what you think of Bea."

Oh gods above they were diving right into this, weren't they? "Politically speaking, Beaver is the worst possible match for Prince Phoenix."

"Nix. We're all friends here, we can call them by their nicknames."

Ignis tutted, but obliged. "Bea is a servant, and if the hinting is correct he's an illegal immigrant and has connections to the city's inner crime ring! A terrible match for a man that we know will eventually become emperor of practically the entire known world!" Ignis waved his fork. "And I am wholly unconvinced that his actual name is Beaver. Cor could find out. I would bet you anything that Cor will reveal his true identity next book."

"I think that Cor and Bea are secretly already friends."

"What?!"

Gladio shrugged at him. "Cornelius is a disgraced noble from the other territory who was tortured for years before finding a place in Nix's radar and inner circle. He knew about Reeves and Jessamine when they showed up. He knew they were trustworthy. He knew about the assassination plot before even the king's men did. You think the illegal immigrant cleaning everyone's rooms flew under his nose until now? No way. They already know each other. Bea already has Cor's trust. Bea's not going anywhere." Gladio took a bite, chewing and swallowing before he went on. "Anyway, yeah, okay, politically Nix and Bea are a terrible match, but I like them as a personality match."

"Do you?"

"Yeah. Nix gives so much of himself to everything else, and Bea isn't political. Bea's also nurturing in a way that Wolf and Cor aren't. I think they're endgame."

"Endgame," Ignis hissed. "A character introduced this late in the series?"

"The series is gonna be six books long. Two more books for us to get attached to Bea. I also think that Cor and Wolf are gonna be endgame too."

"You're kidding me!"

"Think about it. Just, sit back for a moment and think about it."

Ignis did. He sat back and tried to think such logic through. "I do suppose," Ignis said at length, "that both Cor and Wolf are endlessly loyal to Nix. They'd burn the world for him, and...no one else understands that intense loyalty."

"Not even Nix himself. Yeah. That's not everything though. They _bonded_ in this book. Wolf shared his love of animals. Cor made him brownies after he had that disappointing meeting with his parents. They talked and planned things together. They celebrated Nix's success together. Cor actually laughed. They're getting closer. It's not just that either. Think about their magic!"

"Cornelius doesn't have magic, Gladio. Being tortured cut off his tie to it. He's a void."

"Exactly! What's Wolf? The exact opposite. So much energy that he can barely contain it! It hurts him! He's scared of hurting the people around him! People hale him as the strongest black mage of his time, but he's afraid he's going to kill his own prince! If Nix and Wolf were endgame, their magic would destroy cities. Cor would weaken Nix's summoning ability. But Cor and Wolf? Perfect balance. Wolf would have control. Cor would feel whole. Power couple."

"I really kind of hate how much sense that makes."

Gladio snorted. "Plus, you know, enemies to lovers is a beloved trope."

"I would not call them enemies."

"Cor literally sucker punched Wolf in the face first book."

Ignis couldn't argue with that. "They got over it quickly enough. If...only because Phoenix threatened to have them both removed from his side."

Gladio grinned at him. It made butterflies flutter in Ignis' stomach. "Enemies to lovers, I'm telling you." For a minute or so, silence lapsed between them. They ate, without the air of oppressing energy that Ignis had felt since they'd met. For a minute or so there was nothing but peace between them. "So what do you think of the fan theory that Helena is going to seduce Jessamine into colluding against Nix?"

Ignis slammed his fork on the table. "Princess Penelope and Lady Helena deserve nothing less than to die alone and abandoned and if either of them so much as lays a finger on the noble Lady Jessamine--!"

They argued for the rest of their lunch period.

And for several lunch periods after that.

On the last day of school, Gladio sat an entire backpack full of books down in front of Ignis. It was so heavy that Ignis could barely lift it. He was thankful that Gladio pointed out that it had wheels. "These are a bunch of my favorites. I'd love to discuss them with you after summer break."

That was how Ignis spent his summer break. Cleaning, cooking, keeping quiet, and reading his way through Gladio's bag of books. He didn't like all of them, but he had something to say about each and every one. When September came and Ignis returned to find Gladio eagerly awaiting him, he knew that that was the entire point.

He wasn't sure when they became inseparable. He wasn't sure when being around Gladio stopped making him feel crazy and started making him feel safe. He wasn't sure when he started to crave his presence or opinion. He wasn't sure when the memories began to glide together like water with this life making him feel like an ancient being finally coming to rest. He didn't know when it started. He knew it happened. He knew that before his life had been nothing but a misery he was wading through. Life was existence he was just trying to get through. Now he had something bright. Now he had something to look forward to.

When he began to dread the weekends away from Gladio, Ignis knew he was completely lost to Gladio's thrall.

Of course he wasn't able to keep it to himself. Not that he said anything, but others inevitably noticed the change in his behavior. They noticed who caused it. Gladio was smart, athletic, and personable. In short, Gladio was popular. Ignis was not. Of course people noticed.

"Do you think he's ever going to actually notice you?"

A memory flooded by many others like it overtook his senses. A hand on his shoulder. A hand in his. Through complete darkness - a tether. _"I've got you, Iggy."_

"I have no idea what you mean."

"Faggot." A word he'd not heard before. A taboo word of an age gone by. Their parents would be ashamed. "Do you really think that if he knew why you cling to him that he'd let you anywhere near him?"

Ignis opened his mouth, even though he wasn't really quite sure how to respond. "I really--"

"I am not ashamed of Ignis." Gladio appeared at his shoulder, like the strong steady force Ignis knew he'd always been. Of course he appeared when he needed him most. What he did not expect were fingers at his chin, and then lips pressed against his own. Ignis could barely hear the sound of his tormentors running away over the rushing of blood in his ears.

A foolish part of his brain wished the moment would never end, but of course Gladio pulled away. Of course time moved forward. "You did not need to do that." He whispered. He was glad he had. He was for so many reasons. "I could have handled it."

"I," Gladio whispered, "am not ashamed of you. Or how I feel about you." And then he kissed Ignis again. This time, Ignis kissed back and the feeling of wanting eternity returned.

When they parted again, Gladio asked him out on a date. Ignis said yes.

This did not go over well with the household. They wanted him home for dinner, which was exactly the time when he was going to be out. No one in the house could wrap their minds around him not being home for an evening to cook for them. Even the idea of him making something ahead and letting them reheat it was abhorrent.

The problem with dinner could have easily been resolved if any single person in his family had been willing to budge on any single level. Instead, at 5:45 he was answering a knock at his door, and he hadn't even gotten around to brushing his hair yet. "Hey," he greeted Gladio as casually as he could. "Sorry, I'm not quite ready. It'll just be a couple minutes. I just need my shoes, jacket, and to brush my hair."

"What's going on? It's not you to not be ready exactly on the dot."

Ignis smiled. That was a past life thing, but it was also a present life thing. Ignis wasn't sure it was a voluntary trait or one developed out of duress. "I was delayed by a disagreement with my family."

"Disagreement, huh?"

Just then, his mother decided to jump in. "You have him back in an hour. Or less, that would be great."

"What?" He heard Gladio mutter in disbelief.

Ignis sighed, he couldn't believe they were still going to go through this. In front of a guest. "We are going to go out and have a nice time. I will be home before ten." All perfectly reasonable. Any parent ought to be happy with that.

"And what are we supposed to do about the mess in hallway? Or dinner?"

"Leave it. I'll take care of it tomorrow. As for dinner, I don't know," and frankly, he didn't care anymore. "Order pizza!" He bit down on his tongue to stop himself from saying anything more. "I'll be right back." He managed to keep his voice soft and even for Gladio. "Promise."

Gladio caught his elbow as he turned. "Hey, Iggy?"

"Yes?"

"Grab your school-bag while you're up there. You can quiz me on stuff on our way back."

"Okay?" Ignis tilted his head. Did Gladio feel like he was falling behind in one subject or another? He shouldn't be. Gladio was second in class. "Which texts?"

"Just grab all of them. We'll play it by ear." He gave him a lopsided grin, and the butterflies in Ignis' stomach returned en force.

"All right." He left Gladio then, ran up to his room, pulled on his shoes, jacket, brushed his hair in a hurried way, and pulled his book-bag over his shoulder. Truly, he still thought it was odd that Gladio wanted him to bring it, his mind kept trying to run through all the possible reasons why. He couldn't settle on any of them. Shaking his head, he went back down the stairs to find his older brother chatting with Gladio at the door. It wasn't a pleasant conversation. He could by his brother's smirk and the moments away from punching expression on Gladio's own face.

"Leave him alone!"

"Don't worry, I was just telling him how crazy you are. He deserves to go in knowing."

"And I told him that I know exactly how crazy you are." Gladio pushed the screen door open for him. "Let's go."

Gladio had a car. Ignis had been vaguely aware that Gladio had earned his driver's license recently. He'd been all too eager to share the news, as teenagers often were. Ignis was still somehow surprised by the car. It was sleek and a model newer than his family had ever had, but not brand new. Still, it was within the last five years, that was for sure. "Your fathers?"

Gladio shook his head. "Mine."

"It's nice."

He looked up to Gladio's face, and saw a teasing smirk there that somehow no longer irritated him. "You wanna go for a ride in it?"

He did. He very much did. Gladio held the door open for him. He felt special.

Once out on the road, Ignis was overtaken by memory. It wasn't specific, it was more of a group of memories that combined themselves into an intense nostalgia. In another life Gladio's hands would have never touched that steering wheel. In another life Ignis drove nearly all the time, only to occasionally be taken over by a certain prince whose name he could not recall, despite knowing it well from textbooks. The last bit he could only remember as a terrifying thing. The prince had not been the best of drivers, yet better than the alternatives his memories gave him.

"You didn't drive last life."

"No," Gladio agreed. "But some things change."

"Others stay the same."

Ignis looked out the window for a while, to avoid looking at Gladio's hands on the steering wheel. Eventually the nostalgia faded into something bearable.

It was at about this time that Gladio spoke again. "I have a confession to make."

"Yes?"

"We're not going on a date tonight."

Ignis frowned. "No?"

"No. I mean. Don't get me wrong, we _were_. That was the plan. It changed."

"Then where are we going? What are we doing?"

"I'm taking you home. To my home." Gladio took in a deep breath. "You are never going back to that house if I have anything to say about it."

And then Ignis had a whole other set of emotions to deal with. Yet. Yet there was something about the way he could not bring himself to open his mouth and tell Gladio to take him home that told him the truth. The truth was that never going back was very appealing. Eventually he managed to softly say, "I'm not old enough to emancipate myself."

"Let my dad worry about that." Gladio paused. "Speaking of Dad. You will...know him. And my sister. Don't run away this time? Please?"

He tried to remember how meeting Gladio had felt. It had been so overwhelming that he couldn't even remember it properly. "I make no promises, but I'll try."

A hand squeezed his knee. Ignis didn't have the heart to tell him to keep both hands on the steering wheel.

Gladio eventually pulled off into a neighborhood that Ignis had never been in. It was the sort of place with manicured lawns and porches that went on for miles. In the autumn evening he could see that one house even had its own gazebo. "What did you say your father does for a living again?" He said again, but he wasn't actually sure he'd ever asked. It had never seemed important.

Gladio made a soft sound that Ignis thought was vaguely embarrassed. "Dad is the CEO of Shield Sports."

Shield Sports. Only the biggest manufacturer and distributor of sports goods in all of Lucis, perhaps all of Eos. One could not turn on a television program without seeing at least one advertisement for their products. His father was the CEO. "So really, this is a low class neighborhood for you."

"Don't think of it like that," Gladio shrugged his shoulders up against his neck. Even in the dim lighting Ignis could see how his face flushed red. "Dad's always wanted us to be closer to the ground than the sky. Iris and I have always gone to public schools. We go camping for weeks in the summer, and not the kind with a camper. We live out here where it's nice, yeah, but still accessible. He makes sure all his employees have a livable wage plus a bit more. I don't think Dad would be happy. On a big estate. We Amicitia like people too much."

"Sounds fake, but okay."

Gladio snorted. His shoulders straightened a little. "It sounds fake to you because you don't like people."

"Guilty as charged."

"All the same, I hope you like my...people."

"They're yours," Ignis assured gently, despite the cesspool of emotions swirling inside of him. "I'm sure I will adore them."

Admittedly, when Gladio pulled into the driveway, it was in front of the homeliest house in the sector. Homely didn't mean unattractive in this case, it meant that it looked the most like a home. It wasn't outrageously large. It was painted in warm browns with white trim. It was clearly well kept, but not professionally so. There was a garage with a basketball hoop over the top of it. It somehow screamed wealth, yet didn't, like it didn't quite know what it was.

"Wait here for a few minutes, okay?" Gladio told him as he turned off the engine. "I wanna talk to dad alone first."

"All right." He wanted to beg him to not leave him alone, not like this. Sitting in a car holding onto his school bag, after being told he was never going back to the place he'd grown up. he'd grown so used to being alone. It should have been easy, yet in this time of turmoil he didn't want to leave Gladio's side for a moment, even as Gladio himself caused the turmoil. "I'll wait."

Maybe Gladio could sense his stress, because he leaned over the center console and kissed his cheek. "It won't be long. I promise." He got out of the car then, and Ignis was left alone.

Thoughts and emotions threatened to drown him almost immediately. He tapped his fingers and feet, he measured his breathing, he even took out his science textbook and tried to read the next chapter in the terrible lighting. Nothing really helped, even as he forced himself to focus word by word.

"Hey!"

Ignis startled a little, his face looking up to meet eyes and a face that were like Gladio's, if feminine and younger, and that was all he got before his memories put everything else into place. The girl's name was Iris, and he had known her almost all her life. She had not been a person he'd thought on often, his only bad memories of her were in her own sadness that he could not help, but now good filled in between and he remembered how bright and optimistic she was. How helpful. How strong. They had always understood each other in almost every way. Kindred spirits someone had once said. Caring souls.

He did not run. He didn't feel like he could. "Hello, Iris."

"It's good to see you, Iggy!" The girl bounced on the other side of the car door, her voice comically muffled before she pulled it open and climbed into the driver's seat. "Gladdy said I'd know you, but I never imagined so closely!" Her legs swung to and fro, so short that it was comical how far away they were from the petals. She'd grow taller in a couple of years, Ignis knew. in the end she'd almost been as tall as he...or so he'd been told. "It's good to see you again." She said it as though she'd not just said something similar.

"It's good to see you too." He meant it.

"I thought you and Gladdy were going on a date."

"We were. Something...came up." He wasn't exactly sure how to explain that Gladio had taken one look at the way his family treated him and had decided no more. He was still trying to process even thinking about it. Luckily Iris didn't press further, and they sat in companionable silence until the door opened and Gladio slipped his way back down to the car.

"Come on up," he said through the glass. "Dad wants to meet you."

No. That wasn't intimidating at all.

His legs felt about as stable as jam as he pulled himself out of the car and followed Gladio and Iris up to their front door. Though his eyes took in the sight of light blue walls and light stained wood flooring, it wouldn't be until much later that he took in the inside of their home at all. His eyes focused immediately on the man in their foyer. When their eyes met, Ignis knew him all at once. Clarus was a man his memories knew better as a shadow to a king than as a father to two people close to him. His bad memories were mostly of work things, orders and the like passed down. Bad news that was always somehow worse when it fell from his lips. The good memories that filled themselves in now were lesser, but were things of subtle kindnesses shown in moments when he could be a man and not his position.

Ignis didn't run, but he would have fallen to his knees if Clarus had not been there to catch his hands and steady them. "Hello, son," he said softly. The moniker only made his knees weaker. Clarus tugged at his hands. "Why don't you come sit on our couch?" Ignis nodded, as though he could have resisted at all as Clarus gently led him. When he let go of his hands, Ignis all but fell into the soft couch cushions.

"Gladio, take Iris and go get us all something for supper."

"C'mon, Moogle."

"I wanna stay with Iggy!"

"We'll be back, but they gotta talk and we all gotta eat." Ignis practically heard Iris' pout as she stomped off after him back toward the door. Ignis didn't see them go. He was looking at his hands.

"Ignis." He only looked up because he heard Clarus asking for it in his very name. "Gladio told me a couple of things. Both things seen and things he's guessed at. I would like to hear it from you. All of it, from the very beginning."

"All of it? The very beginning?"

"As far back as you can go this life, yes."

That. That was hard, because it had always been there. Ignis pressed his hands together, took a deep breath, and straightened his back. "I've been told I was a baby that never stopped crying." And that was really all it took. The words that followed were perhaps not organized strictly by linear time, but they certainly spilled out. He started, and he didn't stop until he heard the door open again. When he heard that, his lips remained parted, but his voice died in his throat.

Clarus seemed to understand. "Can I assume that anything else is just more of the same?"

"Yes," Ignis managed to push past his throat. "You can assume that."

Seconds later Gladio was putting bags on the coffee table and Ignis smelled garlic. "I was just gonna get pizza, but Iris insisted on that pasta place. You know, the one down on fifth."

"That's because Iggy has refined taste!" Iris said with a haughty sniff as she all but threw herself onto the couch next to Ignis. "I sure hope you weren't gonna take him to get pizza on your date!"

"Pizza would have been fine," Ignis insisted, though he could not stop himself from smiling, just a little.

As they ate, Iris chattered at them, asking questions that Ignis indulgently answered between bites. By the time his fork was scraping the bottom of the pasta bowl they'd brought for him he was feeling overextended. He couldn't even describe it as tired, upset, sad, or angry. Stressed perhaps. He wanted to scream to release tension. He wanted to sleep to feel himself again.

It was Clarus who collected the dishes and garbage from them and then disappeared into what Ignis assumed was the kitchen before he reappeared. "I suppose we should discuss where you're going to stay."

"Are you really not taking me back?"

Clarus sighed. He sounded much like Ignis felt. "Dear boy. If I can prevent you from setting foot there again, I will."

Like father like son, Ignis supposed.

"He could stay in my room!" Iris chimed in, her feet bouncing excitedly against the couch as she swung them.

Clarus looked at Iris with all the love that a father could give to a child. Ignis found himself burning with envy. He could not remember a time in either life where he'd ever been looked at like that. He hadn't realized how much he craved a parent's affection until that exact moment. "I was thinking more along the lines of him staying in the guest room."

"Oh," Iris deflated a little for just a second before she perked up again. "That works too!"

The guest room he was led to looked like a high end hotel room. It was sparse for decoration, but the bed looked comfy, larger than any he'd slept in this life. Everything looked and smelled clean. Not lived in. It was clearly a space left aside for guests, just as the name suggested. He was given a clean toothbrush and clothes in the form of old, soft things that came from the recesses of Gladio's own closet. He said that he'd outgrown them, but Ignis looked at them and then gave that same look to Gladio.

"Indulge me."

"These will literally fall off of me."

"Indulge me," Gladio repeated.

Ignis sighed, because it wasn't really like he had much choice. "It can't be a permanent solution."

"It's not. Promise." Gladio leaned forward, he pressed his lips against Ignis' forehead as gently as one might hold a kitten. "Good night, Iggy."

"Good night, Gladio."

He was left alone after that, which was all well and good considering that Ignis quickly discovered that the sweatpants would not stay up no matter how tightly he tried to tie the string. Though the t-shirt was long enough to cover anything unsightly, it still left him feeling exposed. Even so, he crawled into bed and fell asleep almost instantly. He slept better than he could ever remember sleeping without drugs in his system.

When he awoke in the morning, the world was still there, and after he dressed in his clothes from the night before he made his was through the house until he happened upon Gladio and Iris in the kitchen. Instantly Iris bounced up to him, a box of doughnuts in hand. "Breakfast!" She announced to him, and with a small laugh he selected a jelly filled glazed one from the box. "Dad's on his phone in the office, but he'll get the last two when he'd done."

"On a Sunday? I suppose the business of sporting goods never stops."

"It's not about work!" Iris pushed him lightly in the stomach. "It's about you!"

The words were much more of a blow than the light shove could have ever been. "I. See."

"Since you're finally up--" Ignis looked around to the clock and almost choked to see that it was nearly noon. "Why don't we take a walk? By the time we get back, Dad'll probably be finished."

Seeing the neighborhood in daylight was a bit different. Colors were bright and the air was crisp. Winter was a ways off yet, but autumn was here. It followed them through their walk, illuminating lawns with colorful leaves, making everything sharp. It was the sort of neighborhood where nothing ever happened. The sort of place that the people in his neighborhood dreamed about, knowing it was never attainable.

By the time they turned around to go back, Ignis had shivered exactly once, and Gladio had taken the liberty of wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "Why are you such a furnace?"

"I gotta match the cliche, right?" Ignis had rolled his eyes, but had also not pushed away the warmth. Iris had kept stealing glances back at them the whole way back.

Clarus was waiting for them when they returned, halfway through what looked like his second doughnut. "I've taken care of everything for now," he said in between bites. "We'll have a visit from a social worker later in the week. For now though, you're allowed to stay." Ignis was pretty sure that wasn't normal protocol. Ignis was pretty sure normal protocol was to have him placed in a random house, unless it was a different relative claiming him. Ignis didn't ask about it. He didn't want to know.

The rest of their day was spent shopping. They bought him clothes, and books, and toiletries. His opinions were valued and price was no object. It was opposite of everything else he'd ever known in this life. It was both comforting and deeply unsettling. They ate dinner at a family style restaurant. There was laughter, and Ignis didn't know how to feel.

In the morning, they went to school, but not the school they'd been going to. It was Gladio's old school. He was already registered. He was given books and a schedule. "I'll take care of your old books on my way to work," Clarus had told him, and everything had continued being completely and utterly odd.

He wasn't even treated like a new kid, he simply came attached to Gladio, and at first Ignis thought that everyone's politeness to him was circled completely around that. It was a while before he realized the further truth. It was a while before it sunk in that he had no reputation here. No siblings who had circled the rumors of his insanity around. No preconceived notions that he should be shunned. He was new, and the oddest thing about him was that Gladio kept trying to get him to sit on his lap at lunch.

Being Gladio's smart boyfriend was a reputation he could get used to.

It was Wednesday when the social worker came around. He had to tell his story once again, this time leaving out all the bits about other lives and other crazy sounding things. She took notes on her tablet and occasionally made little humming noises. "You're going to be seventeen in a few months?"

"Yes, in February."

She made another note. "Thank you for your time, Ignis. I know this wasn't easy for you."

He almost said that he'd lived through much worse than anything he'd just talked about. He kept his mouth shut instead. He also did not ask what she was going to do now. That wasn't for him to know. That was an adult topic. Instead he went back to school the next day and enjoyed something he'd never had in either life. A school experience unfettered by expectations. A school life he could say he enjoyed.

That Saturday, Gladio took him out on the date he'd meant to the week before. It was a dancing class that neither of them needed because they _remembered_ how to dance for formal occasions. They listened anyway, and ended up being top of their class, winding away in each other's arms in their own corner. Ignis had never been so content.

It was Sunday when his mother called. It was Iris who had gotten to the phone first, but she brought it to Gladio, her eyes full of tears. "She called me a bitch!" She whispered, voice full of hurt. Gladio reached for it, but Ignis snatched it first.

"Hello?" He kept his voice as calm as he was able, but it was much harder than it had once been.

 _"Ignis! You have a lot of nerve!"_ She kept talking, but he took the piece away from his ear.

"Call back when you can trust your mouth to be civil, mother." He hung up, and he opened his arms to Iris, who did more than accept the offer of a hug. She crawled right into his lap and stayed there for nearly an hour. The phone did not ring again that day.

It was a Thursday some weeks into his stay with the family when they came home to a box addressed to him. "Did you order something?"

"No." He barely held himself back from saying he didn't have money to order with. Gladio was already enforcing a "what's ours is yours" policy that Ignis was loath to accept. He gave the box a little shake, and it revealed nothing to him. It was neither heavy or light for its size, but was also clearly from a professional company. This wasn't a sign that his mother had found out where he lived on top of their phone number.

It was Iris who gasped. "It's here! Yay! It's here!" She unlocked the door at record speed and maximum excitement, pulling Ignis by the arm into the kitchen. When she held her arms out, Ignis sat the box in them, and she opened it like it was her birthday - all enthusiasm and smiles.

The first item out of the box was a booklet that was handed off to Ignis. When he flipped through it he found that it was a recipe book for making a vegetable lasagna. All the subsequent items out of the box were the ingredients to make it. The only things missing were the oven and cookware. "Iggy! Iggy!" She said when she'd unpacked all of it. "All the prep is already done for us! Would you help me make dinner?!"

"Iris..." Gladio began to chide, but Ignis put a hand to his chest, silencing him. Or perhaps it was the smile on his face that stopped him.

"There is a world of difference between my mother demanding I cook every meal and my friend asking me to help them learn to cook. Of course I'll help you, Iris."

"Really?! Oh thank you! Thank you, Iggy!" The small girl launched herself at his waist, and Ignis returned her embrace, warmth blossoming in his chest.

They spent the next hour carefully reading the instructions, finding the proper cookware, and assembling the lasagna, before putting in the oven to bake. At the end of it, Ignis pressed a small switch that Iris could not yet reach, so that she could watch what was going on inside the oven. Not that it was exciting.

"Iggy?" She asked at the point that the cheese began to bubble.

"Yes, Iris?"

"If I got a mix, would you teach me to make muffins?"

Ignis smiled. He was doing that a lot more lately. "Iris, I would teach you to make muffins without a mix."

"Really?"

"Absolutely."

"Gladio!" She called, a moment later his boyfriend's large form appeared in the doorway. "I'm disowning you! Ignis is my brother now!"

It felt good to laugh until he almost cried. He and Iris often cooked together after that. Pieces of his life seemed to start to come together.

It was pure coincidence that he'd been up to go to the bathroom that night. It was pure luck that he'd heard the small sounds of distress through the door. Not crying. He would not call it crying, but distress. Yes, that was a good word for it. He almost walked past. He almost went back to bed. He couldn't. How could he ignore Gladio's pain? Gladio had never ignored his.

He knocked. "I'm coming in," he said after a moment, and twisted the doorknob to do just that. He found Gladio in his bed, wrapped so tightly in his blankets that Ignis wondered if they wouldn't rip if he held them any tighter. He closed the door behind him and crawled into the bed space without asking. Gladio didn't push him away. Instead he abandoned his hold on his covers, and wrapped his arms around Ignis instead.

"Did something happen? Or is it memories?"

"The second one," Gladio hissed into his ear.

"Tell me about them?"

"It's always the same. It's always--" he stopped to take a deep shuddering breath. It was a gesture Ignis knew in the core of his soul. "I didn't protect you. Any of you. Not the gunner. Not the king. Not the tactician - you. I couldn't protect any of you. You were hurt, tortured, killed, lost, and I can't stop any of it."

"None of us could."

"I was the Shield."

"And I was a blade. The other a gun. None of us could stop anything." Ignis sighed. "But it's all right to be upset about it." Ignis wondered if this was the same loop he'd been going through when they'd met. He'd hidden himself away then too, behind the curtain of the stage. Hiding his perceived weakness. How much of a blow had it been to see someone he'd ached for right before his eyes, only for them to run like they'd seen a ghost?

He couldn't change that, but he could be here now.

He stayed there all night, and when he woke to sunlight he wasn't sure when he'd fallen asleep.

The downside to comforting his boyfriend in the middle of the night was being caught leaving his room. He and Clarus stared at each other for about a thousand instants too long to be comfortable before Ignis managed to avert his eyes. "I do hope you're using protection."

Ignis instantly blushed bright. "It wasn't like that!" He promised.

"I still hope you are."

To add insult to injury, two days later Clarus gave him a bag. When he looked inside he found condoms. The bag was shoved into the guest room's closet and was left untouched and unmentioned. He wasn't ready for that. No. Not now.

It was mid-January when the phone rang and Ignis picked it up to find his mother on the other end. He'd almost thought she'd given up. He'd certainly hoped so. Less than a month was left before he could free himself without the system. It was less than a month before he'd find out if Clarus meant that he could stay as long as he liked, or if it was time for him to find a new place, and probably a job, because he wasn't going back. No. Not ever. That was what he told her when she told him it was time to give up the charade and come home.

"What exactly do you think he's going to do to you when he finds out you're sleeping with his only son?" Of course she knew now exactly who Clarus was. It wouldn't be hard. Not with an internet connection and a laptop.

"He bought me condoms," he threw in her face, despite the way his cheeks still heated. She couldn't see it. It didn't matter. "So I really don't think he minds so much."

The stunned silence on the other end of the line was extremely satisfying.

 _"You'll come back!"_ She stuttered through eventually. _"You'll see. His hospitality won't last!"_

"Goodbye, mother." He hung up the phone. He waited. She didn't call back.

Strong arms snaked around his waist and pulled him back into an equally strong chest. "Who bought my boyfriend condoms now?" If his blush had faded, it returned full force, and Ignis tsked.

"Your father, after he caught me leaving your room that one morning."

"So you're telling me," lips paused to mouth at his neck and Ignis inhaled sharply. "My father handed over permission to use those, and we haven't used a single one?"

"I would never want to assume--" He stopped short when he felt thumbs tug at his belt loops.

"Ignis, if I had my way, we'd have gone through several boxes of those already."

"Teenage boys and their hormones," he chided, yet he didn't object at all to being led down the hall. He didn't object to being pressed against the wall of the room he was staying in, or any of the things Gladio did to him after that. It was only much, much later that Ignis realized that Gladio's goal had probably been to distract him from thoughts of his mother. Well, he'd been very, very successful.

His birthday came and went without much fanfare. Iris baked him cupcakes all by herself from a mix. She'd even managed to pipe little 17s on each and every one of them. Gladio's gift had been his own set of the Silver City books, new, hardcover, with newly designed dust jackets. He would cherish them. Clarus' gift had been a trip downtown to buy him more clothes. "You've gained both height and weight," Clarus said with a small sigh. "They didn't feed you enough either, did they?"

That had never been a concern of Ignis', but the answer was probably no, especially considering that he hadn't noticed he was gaining weight if he had. More implications he didn't want to think about, so he didn't. Instead he waited for a conversation with Clarus about what he would do now that he was old enough to be on his own. Would he be expected to get a job? Would he be expected to move out? He waited, he waited for several days after even. The conversation never came.

Life went on exactly as it had been.

Senior year brought with it more stress. As far as the schoolwork itself went it was probably the least stressful year since second grade, but what relaxed in school work was replaced by other things, like trying to decide if he wanted further schooling (the answer was yes). From there it went onto what profession did he want to go into (he wasn't sure) and where he wanted to go (Insomnia, probably, that's where Gladio was going, and it did have excellent schools.) The only thing he really knew for sure was that he'd need money to pay for it with.

That was where Clarus found him on Sunday afternoon, on the couch filling out applications while Iris watched one of her magical girl cartoons. "Are you filling out scholarship forms?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I'd best get a head start on it, if I'm to have enough to pay tuition." Of course, he wanted to avoid loans, but he'd probably have to work on getting those by the end of the year as well--

"You don't need those, Ignis."

"I will though."

"No." Clarus sighed, and then sat down on the couch beside him, not quite close enough to be in Ignis' personal space. "I think of you as my child. I call you son sometimes, and I truly mean that Ignis. I call you son because you came to me and you have been my child ever since. You don't need scholarships or student loans because when the time comes you will point in the direction you want to go and I will pay your way. As I will for all my children."

Ignis' breath caught in his lungs. Truly, they didn't want to move, and for long agonizing seconds Ignis felt like he could not breathe. "I could not possibly ask..." he managed when he got a small pocket of air to move.

"You're not asking. I'm telling you to throw those forms away and leave the scholarships to the children that actually need them. You don't."

It took him several days, but eventually Ignis shredded the forms and moved onto his next problem.

"History major?" Gladio asked when he approached him with the idea. "You don't love history. I mean, you don't hate it, but dedicating your life to it seems..." His voice drifted off. Ignis smiled indulgently.

"A bit much?"

Gladio rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah."

"Not all of us can be so lucky as to know that we're passionate about a particular area of medicine from a young age." Ignis plucked the paper back. "That aside, I am a bit of history all on my own, from an area of history not well recorded at that. Besides--"

"Yeah?"

"I've been thinking on our other half lately." He knew he didn't need to explain what other half meant. The king. The gunner. They were still very important pieces that were missing from their lives. Pieces that hurt to think about. "I want to find them."

"And you think becoming a history major will help you do that?"

"I think that someday our other half will be looking for answers. Actively. The internet will not help them, so they'll have to search somewhere else. If I play my cards correctly, they'll fall right into our lap. I'm thinking the archives in Insomnia. It'll take some time, but I think that's where I'll need to be."

"Iggy, you're really smart and everything, but the likelihood that you'll be exactly where they look is--"

"Is what? About as likely as us being on rival track and field teams at the same time?"

Gladio sighed again. "Yeah. About as likely as that. I just don't think it'll be that simple."

"Have a little faith in aligning stars, Gladio."

As graduation crept closer and closer, Ignis kept expecting a call from his mother. A call came in the day before the ceremony, but it wasn't his mother on the other end. It was his father.

Unlike his mother, his father had not called to beg him to come home. He had not called to tell him that the house was in shambles and it was all his fault. His father had called to tell him to not expect anything. _"You're done."_ he said. _"Don't bother coming back to us when you need anything. You're not getting a single thing more from this family."_

"That's quite all right," he told him in return. "You never much gave me anything anyway. I cannot miss what you never gave." It seemed like all his calls with family members ended with him hanging up on them, and he did so then. Gently, with no anger.

It was to be the last time he'd ever hear from his blood family at all.

Ignis was all right with that. He had a new life now, he had a new family. One that loved him, even if he could not comprehend why. He could share his joy and sorrow with them. He would not trade it for the world.

After graduation they bought a house, or rather Clarus bought a house, closer to Insomnia, but not in the city direct. Ignis did not think the placing was unintentional. It was about halfway between the two. Clarus did not want them living too far away. "I don't think I want to know how much this house cost," Ignis said to Gladio before even all of their things had been moved in.

"Dad said the mortgage is visiting him twice a month."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it."

"Yeah, but I'm pretty sure we can afford the mortgage. If you're worried."

"I wasn't."

They would live in that house for years. They were mostly quiet years spent studying. Small goals were accomplished edging him toward his goal of being hired into the Insomnia archives. Every six months or so Gladio would lay down next to him in bed and ask if that was what he really wanted. Strong arms would wrap themselves around his waist and ask if he wouldn't rather go to culinary school, or into some sort of science. Even a homemaker, or a online personality, if that was what would make him happy.

"I will be happy when we are whole," Ignis told him every time, and it was true.

Just as he'd thought, Noctis and Prompto fell through the doors of the Insomnia archives only a few months after he'd started working there. They had their own scars, but their lives collided just as wholly into their own immediately. It wasn't long before their home housed four.

"What's Silver City?" Prompto asked one summer evening when Ignis was twenty-nine.

"Why do you ask?" Ignis pressed a glass filled with lemonade into Noctis' hand, and he could barely see Prompto shrug.

"They're making a show? And I know I've seen that title somewhere else."

"It's on the shelves in the living room," Ignis told him gently. "It's a book series. I think you'd like them."

"Yeah?"

"Yes." He passed iced tea off onto the coaster next to Prompto. "They're terrible, yet endearing. I'll read them to you if you like."

"Really?!"

"Yes. I think I'd quite enjoy that."

"What's going on?"

"Gladio! Iggy's gonna read Silver City to us!"

"Is that so--hey!" Gladio crossed the whole room in three strides, his hands cradling his face, thumbs swiping away at the tears that fell from his eyes. "What's wrong?!" Noctis and Prompto were by his side in an instant as well. Their hands pulling at the fabric of his shirt, fingers creeping into his hair for comfort, but he didn't need any.

"Nothing," he hissed past a throat that wanted to close up on him. "Nothing's wrong, loves. I'm just...happy." There was no other word to describe it.

Ignis was happy. Going forward, he knew little else, and sad memories were just that - memories. He didn't need them anymore.


End file.
